19dp5/6dt - Happy Mother's Day

(source)

 Happy Mother's Day to all the mamas, soon to be mamas, pet mamas and future will be mamas!

Unfortunately for me, I started off my first soon to be mamas day with what is probably a cold. I can't figure out whether it's a regular cold (pregnancy suppresses the immune system) or just pregnancy expanding all my vessels which produces more mucous. I've got a killer sore throat so I'm thinking I might have some sort of post nasal drip thing going on and irritating it. Instead of going out to dinner tonight like we'd planned, E picked up some Matzo Ball soup for me which I ate before falling asleep on his arm and stomach. I'm pretty sure I drooled all over him, my nose started to plug up and I was sleeping with my mouth open, but he didn't move and let me sleep for a good two hours. I seriously love that man.

Since I'm pregnant I can't take anything for a cold. It's not fun, but honestly this is one cold I'm more than happy to just suffer through, I'm not willing to do anything that might damage our fragile embryo during such an important part of development. I can get some decent relief gargling hot water with a little apple cider vinegar but I made the last batch too strong and ended up gagging which was no fun. It works pretty well for at least an hour but I'm not sure I can pull it off with a more sensitive palate. 

In better news, I got a voice mail from the clinic confirming that they want to do my ultrasound at 6 weeks. I was thinking they'd wait for 6 weeks and a few days since we're more likely to see a heartbeat on the 18th at 6 weeks and 4 days but their message said 6 weeks exactly. I'm planning on giving them a call tomorrow and see if I can't get an appointment date so we have something concrete to wait for.

17dp5/6dt - OB Labs

As I mentioned in my previous post, once we got our first positive beta we officially completed the protocol for our frozen embryo transfer. This is pretty standard protocol, I knew that our FET fee wouldn't cover our ultrasounds but somehow I got my wires crossed and thought that it would cover all our betas and hormone tests. That was a $450 surprise and both the clinic and I were hoping to avoid more expenses like that if possible.

Since E and I have Kaiser, our insurance should cover all prenatal care - labs, ultrasounds and appointments. However, since our plan is an HMO, they won't cover any outside care that isn't an emergency even when it's prenatal. Darn. The ultrasounds we can't get around because Dr. D has to check up on our little embie himself, but any lab can run blood tests. So, today Dr. D's nurse sent over a lab order and I had the pleasure of figuring out how to translate that order into the Kaiser system.

I think at a regular lab, I'd just hand this slip over. Not so at Kaiser :/

Unfortunately, my first and second choices for getting the labs ordered were unavailable. Both my acupuncturist (and Kaiser nurse midwife) and OB/GYN were out of the office today and wouldn't be back until Monday. My labs needed to be drawn on Saturday so that wouldn't work. My next option was to leave a message for the on call OB, which I did, but didn't feel particularly confident about it since I don't know them. After waiting a couple hours and not hearing back from them, I went for the last resource I could think of, the Kaiser infertility department.

Unlike most departments of Kaiser that prefer you contact them through the general number, the infertility department gives patients a direct line. While I was doing my IUIs with them, I never had to fuss with an automated system or tell the general system receptionist what I was trying to do. There was always a nurse or assistant on the other end of the line and there was one there today when I called almost a year to the day after my first IUI baseline appointment. I explained everything to them, that I had done IUIs there a year ago, moved on to IVF and now that I had a positive beta I was looking everywhere for someone to order tests for me. They were predictably awesome.

Two minutes on hold, during which two other nurses picked up to see if I was a new caller who needed something, and my labs were ordered. Thanks Kaiser Infertility. I should have called you guys straight away, IUI might not have worked for me but you've been awesome from the very beginning.

I hope these lovely dark lines translate into a super high beta tomorrow. I think we're shooting for something around 6,000 but I'm not completely sure. I think doubling times are supposed to slow to 72-96 hours from 48-72 hours between 5 and 6 weeks. 

16dp5/6dt - Mourning for a Friend

Today, I am mourning for a friend. In an incredibly cruel twist of fate, one of my best friends lost her seemingly healthy baby at almost 14 weeks. With 12 weeks usually regarded as the safe zone, it caught everyone completely off guard. Her previous pregnancies were healthy, all previous appointments had been fine, there was no warning or reasoning - just a fluke occurrence that no one could have prevented. 

Growing new life is such a fragile thing. An incredibly complex process where so many things can go wrong, it's amazing that any of us are here. Even when development looks smooth, one foot can slide out of place and the entire dance is lost. Her loss is a sobering reminder that anything can happen. I hope she and her family are able to get some answers, grieve and heal. 

E and I are still so early in our process that it's difficult to accept it and believe that everything is alright. I look at the birth boards and groups I should be joining for January babies and it looks like a different world - a place were people get pregnant easily, where genetic carriers and IVF/PGD don't exist, where all pregnancies yield a healthy baby.  I don't belong there. I still expect to walk into the ultrasound and see empty sacs or have someone jump out and say "just kidding!".  

The anxiety has been tough lately, throwing me off because I'm not usually an anxious person, and I know I need to work harder on living "today". Anything can happen tomorrow, we could have a healthy baby or babies, empty sacs, a miscarriage at 14 weeks - but today I AM pregnant. Two lines keep showing up every morning, even when the test is a crappy one (I'm looking at you 15dp6dt test - damn your crappy dye lot!). 

Today I am exactly 5 weeks pregnant. According to the www.ivf.ca calculator, cardiac contractions should have begun yesterday in our teeny tiny embryo(s). As long as everything is going okay in there, we should be able to see a heart beat around the 18th. I can't wait to see that tiny flicker. 

15dp5/6dt - Am I Pregnant Today?

This morning, I slept in an extra hour and 45 minutes. I took a test, because I do every morning now, and the test line had somewhat crappy dye uptake. I ate left overs for breakfast, ate a real lunch and tried to snack all day long. I still had heartburn, I don't think I can do anything else about that, but I wasn't starving and I didn't get super exhausted.

Most people would say that's an improvement, a good day because I stayed ahead of things and felt pretty good. For me, with infertility PTSD, my first instinct is to assume there's something wrong.

What if my pregnancy is a chemical?

What if there were two and I'm losing one?

What if my HCG is too high and it's a molar pregnancy? 

What if I'm not pregnant anymore?

After everything we've been through, even with no real supportive evidence, I can't help but assume that something is/will go wrong. I don't know how to relax or how to believe that I'm really pregnant and this worked. How to accept that crappy dye uptake on a STILL POSITIVE pregnancy test could mean anything other than the test is cheap. What kind of crazy person assumes that they've lost a pregnancy because they're not super exhausted that day? It couldn't possibly be the almost 2 extra hours of sleep I got, nooooo. There must be something wrong.

I don't know when this anxiety goes away. When we make it past 12 weeks? When we make it to viability? When I actually have them safely in my arms? Will it ever go away or will it follow me into motherhood, sneaking up in the middle of the night, telling me to check my child(ren)'s breathing? Infertility has been our reality for so long, it colors everything I do.

I'm trying to take things one day at a time. I wish I could look through a peep hole into my uterus to to make sure everything is okay in there. I don't think I can wait 2 more weeks for an ultrasound to see if there are actually bab(ies) in there or if this has all been some sort of cruel joke.

14dp5/6dt - Tricky Baby?

The more I look at my beta numbers, the more I wonder if we don't have a little tricky baby in there. My beta started off high but this last one has gone way up and now I'm giving serious thought to the possibility that there could be two in there - identical twins.

We transferred a Blastocyst so if we had twins, they would have split after day 6

In general, HCG numbers in PGD pregnancies tend to be on the lower side. It's most likely due to the biopsy of the embryo since they're removing cells that would otherwise be producing HCG in early pregnancy. When you remove those cells, the embryo takes a bit longer to bounce back and regrow enough cells to produce high numbers of HCG. It could also be the result of late implantation too, for the same reason really, the embryo needs to bounce back a little before it can successfully implant. Clearly, this hasn't been the case for me. Even my doubling time seems to be ahead of schedule, normal is 48-72 hours and thus far mine has been 35.34 hours.

Betabase.info Doubling calculator

With a beta number of 1642 at 13dp5dt or 18dpo, this puts us in the above, above average category for a singleton pregnancy. With 192 ladies sharing the same range, it's not unheard of but it is significantly higher than average. Only 229/2751 singleton pregnancies had numbers as high as mine or higher, that's only 8.3%.  Again, not impossible, but certainly not common.

If there's only one in there, they sure are an over achiever!

Although the percentage is small, it's believed that biopsying an embryo slightly increases the odds that it will split into monozygotic or identical twins. The theory is that by manipulating the embryo via cell removal and piercing the shell, you're making it more likely for the zygote to split clean in half and develop into two separate babies - either Mono/Di or Mono/Mono twins. Mono/Di twins have their own amniotic sacs but share the same placenta, while Mono/Mono twins share the same amniotic sac and placenta. You can also have Di/Di identical twins when the embryo splits early on, at the morula stage. Those babies actually have their own placentas since they split before they implanted. Mono/Mono twins carry a great number of risks, it's a lot to ask one amniotic sac to hold two babies plus the increased likelihood twin to twin transfusion syndrome (TTTS), cord problems and circulatory problems. Luckily, Mono/Mono twins usually only account for 3% of identical twins. Mono/Di twins are also at risk for TTTS but having their own amniotic sacs offers some protection. Mono/Di babies are often misdiagnosed as Mono/Mono early in the pregnancy because the dividing membrane can be tough to see until later on.

My beta seems a lot more at home in this chart

Looking at the twins beta chart, my numbers are a much better fit within the normal averages. 410/1442  twin mamas had numbers as high as or higher than mine which is 28%, a number that makes a lot more sense than 8%. If we'd transferred two embryos there'd be no doubt in my mind that there's two in there, but with identicals still being such a small percentage, I think it could go either way. Honestly, we'd be happy either way, with an over achieving singleton or a tricky baby that got bored and decided to split. I just want a nice, healthy, normal and boring pregnancy.

13dp5/6dt - Woah Beta!

This mornings beta looked just fabulous! I was hoping for at least 800 with an optimistic 1200 but my HCG is officially 1642! Go little over achiever, go! My hormone levels looked good too, estrogen is 247 and progesterone is 24, and that's with just Endometrin, no progesterone in oil. Not bad for a natural transfer with no PIO!

I will never tire of peeing on these sticks #newhobby

The next check in is Saturday when they'll do another set of labs. The only bummer is that we've now officially completed our FET cycle so everything is charged by appointment again. Today's labs ran me $450 for HCG, progesterone and estrogen from today, and the Estrogen and Progesterone they added on to my last beta and forgot to charge me for. Going forward, that makes a regular appointment with labs and an ultrasound about $610 EACH time. Ouch. Still though, it's a really good problem to have. I'm going to see if I can have my labs run at Kaiser instead of the clinic since they'll cover 100% of them as part of my prenatal care.

As far as our ultrasound, it looks like we're going to have to wait a bit longer to take a peak at our embie baby. I had originally been told by a tech that we'd have one ultrasound at 5 weeks to confirm an intrauterine pregnancy and another between 6-7 weeks to measure the fetal pole, check out the yolk sac and maybe even see a heartbeat. Today the nurse said I'd have just the labs at the end of this week and then an ultrasound at around 6 weeks so it looks like we're skipping the 5 week one. I know it saves us a little money but it's a whooooole week longer I have to wait to lay eyes on this bub. It's crazy how we've been waiting so long for this and now 2 weeks seems like a lifetime away!

9dp5/6dt - Still two lines!

I tested again this morning with another crappy old cheapie since the tests that bestie mailed still haven't arrived. One package has literally been sitting and collecting dust in my local FedEx office but they won't let me go pick it up. Super annoyed with FedEx right now. Even though yesterdays tests were positive, I think I held my breath from the appearance of the control line to the moment the second line popped up. It still feels surreal, though I'm doing my best to enjoy it in the here and now.

The lines look purple because I took the photo after the tests were dry. I think the lines are getting darker!

I also received my cloth pad order from Cozy Folk! I took a chance and ordered a couple postpartum/overnight sized pads along with my liners, telling myself that I could always use them just as overnight pads. If all continues to go well, I'll actually get to use them postpartum :) I bought two 14" heavies and two 12" moderates. The colors and patterns are super bright and adorable but her design is something I've never seen before!

Two 14" on the left, two 12" on the right

I'm not sure if you can tell because I snapped these photos quickly but her pads are backed in Wind Pro fleece with a raw edge. The backing extends past the core as it does in most pads, but instead of continuing the absorbent top material to the edge, she finishes the top fabric edges a couple cms in from the backing edges. I think this is done to prevent leaking off the edge, the backing fabric is water resistant so it won't absorb any liquid, although the single layer around the edges feels somewhat flimsy and floppy compared to the double layers on other pads. In theory, I think liquid will bead and head towards the core and the soft edges will probably be pretty comfortable.

For liners, I decided to try minky, which is especially stain resistant, because I ordered them before I started the Endometrin. I think they'll be just fine and comfy but my plain cotton topped liners have actually been the best for Endometrin thus far. As it dissolves, the pill comes out as a sort of chalky, powdery paste that gets caught in the fibers of longer fabrics but rinses easily off plain, flat cotton. I actually prefer the flannel for my period, but thus far the smooth cotton fabrics win for suppositories. I'll have to see how the minky does tomorrow.

Sorry for the crappy photo!

More importantly, tomorrow is my first official beta! I've been trying to keep my mind off of it so I stay relaxed but it's much easier said than done. I'm not really nervous, but I feel like I'm filled with restless energy. I keep sitting down and then popping back up and I can't seem to settle down.  Unfortunately, walking around a lot seems to give me more little cramps so I feel reluctant to get it out by taking the dog for a walk or something similar.  I might try packing since E and I are heading to San Diego for a couple days for E's work. I'm hoping relaxing in the hotel will be a nice distraction to waiting for my levels to rise for the next anticipated beta on Monday. Or I could end up pacing the room, sitting down and popping back up just like I'm doing here. When does it stop? When my betas rise correctly? When we see a heartbeat? When we get to 12 weeks? When do I relax, or do you never really relax after IVF?

8dp5/6dt - I DID A THING

AHHHHH!!  Do you see it?? These tests are super expired, and it's really, really early, today would only be 3 weeks 6 days, but I see a line on all three tests! We have to keep our cool, it's so early and my betas aren't until Friday and Monday so we won't even know if my HCG levels are high enough to be a viable baby. I've just never had a positive pregnancy test before!

I know at this point that it could be a chemical or an ectopic or any number of other things but for right now, in this moment, I think I'm pregnant! And if that wasn't enough, the doorbell rang and it was a gorgeous bouquet of red roses from one of my besties who knew I was having trouble getting through the two week wait. 

She included a really sweet card and that just about did me in, my hormones can't take this kind of sweetness when I'm this full of emotion already. I couldn't even call her to say thank you, by the time I got my myself together I was at Milou's class where no one knows what we're doing, so I had to text her. She also put some pregnancy tests in the mail for me and they will hopefully arrive tomorrow. That way I have more sticks to pee on before the beta so I can make myself wonderfully crazy over how dark the line is. In the meantime I'm both elated and exhausted, with a healthy dose of sharp little cramps thrown in to remind me that my embie baby is in there doing stuff. 

I can't believe this is really happening. After everything, our embryo is actually sticking!

7dp5/6dt - Spotting Vanished!

Yesterday, even though I know it's normal, the pink spotting was really freaking me the fuck out. It finally, mercifully, stopped after a little over an hour, and I haven't seen even the tiniest trace of it since although I'm still holding my breath every time I pee. I know logically that since it was pink, it was probably from my cervix which has to be supremely pissed off from all the progesterone I've been shoving up there.

The blood was also somewhat streaky, meaning there's a good chance it could be implantation bleeding, a small bleed from the embryo burrowing into the uterine lining and shoving some aside as it gets cozy. You usually get implantation bleeding about 10-14 days after conception, although it's a little different with IVF. I got my spotting 12 days after ovulation, which fits perfectly into that window had we conceived naturally, 6 days after we put our embryo back. If it is implantation bleeding, it could also have been from a couple days before and it just took a little while to make it's way out.

I wasn't going to post a photo because Ewww but then while I was googling implantation bleeding photos for several hours last night I found myself increasingly frustrated that more people hadn't posted their own gross photos. How could I compare my spotting if no one shared theirs?? Did my spotting look normal? Did someone else experience the same thing and have a healthy baby in there? I needed answers! The few people who did post photos, usually on message boards, didn't update the same thread with the outcome which was incredibly obnoxious. So, I decided after much thought to go ahead and post my photo, for the next person out there googling implantation bleeding and freaking out. I promise you I'll update when it turns out that this was implantation bleeding and I have a healthy little fighter in there.

Still, it is a little TMI for many people, so I'm going to post it after the jump so no one gets their sensibilities offended. If you don't want to see blood on a tissue, DO NOT proceed.

6dp5/6dt - Spotting and Cramping

Today, on my way home from acupuncture, I started to experience some mild cramping. It isn't awful but it is more cramping than I've had this whole cycle. I was hoping it was just uterine growing pains until I got home, peed, and noticed pink spotting.

I freaked out, wiped again, and to my great dismay, there was more. I know spotting is extremely common, some crazy high number like 90% of women on vaginal progesterone experience spotting, but that doesn't make it less scary. My only consolation is that the spotting was definitely pink, which is most often implantation spotting or cervical bleeding, usually due to irritation from the Endometrin. Brown spotting is old blood, not worrying, and red blood is obviously concerning since it's usually a period, miscarriage or sub-chronic hematoma.

As long as the bleeding doesn't turn red, I think we're still in the game. My beta isn't until the end of the week and it's only Monday, my nerves might not last until then if this keeps up. I'm hoping with everything that this is implantation bleeding and cramping from our embryo getting good and cozy and not my period trying to break through.

Please, please stick baby. Please, please, please! I'm back in bed drinking tons of water per my acupuncturist and am going to have to take it easy for the rest of the week. Come on baby, you have to stick!

4dp5/6dt - Out of the house

After four days at home, I finally journeyed outside the house today! I went to work at a client's house for a few hours, so not super exciting but still something interesting. It wasn't bad, but my tummy did start to feel tender and kind of sensitive towards the end - it's not in my stomach like a digestive upset, but in my physical belly. I don't want things touching it or pressing against it.

That brings our progesterone symptoms to:

• Tender, sensitive tummy
• Twinges, pokes and little cramps
• Minor hormonalness
• Hunger, I wake up hungry every morning
• Thirst
• Major bloating, my belly is huuuuuge
• Heartburn?

There are probably a few I'm not thinking of since I'm pretty tired, (haha I should add exhaustion to the list) but none are coming to mind at the moment. I'm going to try another little outing tomorrow, some walking around for a couple hours, and see how that goes. Our little embryo should be nice and cozy now and I'm still on the fence about whether I should test early or not. If I test early and it's negative, that will be devastating, but  if  when it's positive I will get to see a positive pregnancy test for the first time ever. It's a tough call.

3dp5/6dt - Crazy Cady Lady

Today, Cillian has been downright obsessed with my belly. He wants to lay on it, kneed it, nuzzle it and sleep on it all day long. He's not an aloof kitty by any means but he doesn't usually spend his days with me when there is sunshine to sleep in and kitty siblings to play with. Even Soximus Prime has been belly obsessed, he climbed onto my belly while I was trying to pee and went to sleep! So naturally, instead of assuming it's because my belly is especially squishy, warm and tempting from the progesterone, it gets me wondering: can cats smell early pregnancy hormones?

Oh, you wanted to pee? No, I don't think so, I'm sleeping here

Unfortunately, Pubmed doesn't seem to have a lot of information on feline recognition of early pregnancy factor, an immunosuppressant produced after conception and later by the implanted embryo. Nor is there a lot of information on feline recognition of HCG, the hormone produced after implantation. Still! If dogs and cats can smell high and low blood sugar on the breath, cancer in urine samples, or sense electrical impulses, I'm sure they can smell the hormone changes associated with pregnancy.

Although it's only been a few days and my belly is super squishy and tempting, I'm gonna choose to believe that our embie has implanted nice and secure and our fuzzies are sensing the changes. Maybe they're smelling some rising HCG levels!

2dp5/6dt - Antsy Already

Today I am still sitting in bed. Sitting and trying to distract myself from thoughts of embryos and implantation with cheesy cable movies and HGTV reruns. Every so often, between episodes of House Hunters and You've Got Mail, I try one of those visualization techniques where I picture the embryo implanting and establishing a good blood supply. Burrow in deep little embie.

Right now, there's hopefully a whole combination of things going on to adhere our embie to my uterine wall. The first step, the attachment, occurs when the outer cells of our blast attach to my endometrium, or the first layers of the uterine lining sometime around 6-10 days after ovulation. The lining sort of swells up to meet the embryo and the embryo coasts down the uterine wall to the best spot. Once they're adhered in place, the embie releases enzymes that break down the the cells of my lining to let the embie into my uterine wall where they'll begin exchanging hormones and start the early development of the placenta.

(Source)

A lot of women have pink or brown spotting around this time that they usually refer to as implantation bleeding. Sometimes that makes sense if it's 6-10 days after ovulation, but other times it doesn't really line up which makes me think it could also be cervical irritation from the vaginal progesterone so many IVF patients are on. I haven't had any spotting yet but believe me, I'm looking out for it just in case. We're right in that implantation window and with all the twinges and tiny cramps I'm feeling, I'd love some insight as to what's going on in there!

TWW: BFN Or Too Early?

At 6:30 this morning I woke up and had to pee so bad that I couldn't go back to sleep. I had a silent internal debate with myself - should I test with a 6 hour hold? Did it count as FMU if I intended to sleep another 6 hours? I finally sucked it up, went pee, and took the test.

At first glance I saw the control line come up and a stark white test area. Negative. I put it away and decided to go back to sleep where I felt miserable and tried to convince myself it's still too early. Once I finally fell back asleep, I dreamt that I woke up, looked again and the test was positive. No such luck in real life. I woke up, E and I checked it, and it's still as negative as ever. 

There are now two possibilities:

1. I'm not pregnant. Fuck. 

2. I didn't ovulate on the day of the IUI so it's actually earlier than 11 DPO and too soon to test. 

Either way, that negative feels just a shitty as I anticipated. How could 148 million sperm and 7 eggs fail to meet up? If this really is a negative, I need to call our clinic and start asking questions about the experience of their embryologist and how often they do PGD cycles. I really don't think I can justify another IUI cycle at $4,000 per cycle but I also don't want to waste any time. Maybe we should start building the probe now and try one or two more IUI cycles while they build it, just in case. 

TWW: Happy 4th of July! Too Chicken to Test

After we did our IUI this cycle, I felt SO confident. There was no way we weren't pregnant with 7 eggs split between both tubes and 148 million sperm, it was practically impossible. But as time wore on, I've gone from "We're totally pregnant!" to "Well...what if we aren't??" to ""Oh nooo, I just know it didn't work!". I'm feeling pretty lame about it right now and I've been too chicken to test today. 10 DPO is still pretty early, and I think staring at yet another negative stick would be so depressing. Trying to convince myself that there might be the shadow of a line on a stark white pregnancy test is not an enjoyable experience.

I'm over-thinking every twinge, every symptom, or the lack of symptoms like a crazy person. Last cycle the progesterone made my boobs hurt SO BAD. This cycle they're only mildly uncomfortable. Does that mean something? Last cycle I had a lot of cramping at this point, it was probably my period trying to break through the progesterone. This cycle I have had very mild cramping overall and almost no cramping now. But then yesterday I felt some pulling twinges on my left side, could those be my period? Does that mean anything? And Wednesday night my cat Button, who usually sleeps on my head or chest, planted herself firmly over my uterus and slept there instead. What does she know??? Last night my other cat Cillian did the same thing, he normally sleeps on my feet but instead slept right on my lower stomach, much to the dismay of Button who had wanted to sleep there again. Does he know something too??? I don't know! It's impossible to not notice this crap even though the knowledge does nothing to help and I can't answer any of my own questions.

This would be awesome. No squinting necessary!

I'm also nervous because if this didn't work, I think the road ahead is going to get much more complicated. While we had initially planned on doing 4 IUIs, we weren't expecting to have to spend SO much on medication for each cycle. I was also unaware of the boost you can get from the medication still in your system from the previous months attempt. Last cycle we spent about $3,000 on meds and got one egg. This cycle we spent around $4,000 on meds but got 7 eggs, probably from a combination of the medication still in my system, the birth control suppression, the higher dose of medication, the acupuncture, and the acupuncture herbs. That's $7,000 on two unsuccessful cycles that we could have put towards IVF and I don't think it would pay to spend another $4,000 - $5,000 on IUI.

If this cycle didn't work, I wouldn't want to lose the boost from this cycle by taking time off. With the higher dose of medication floating around in my system,  I would have a better chance of getting a decent amount of eggs than if I took a cycle off. It would also take forever to build the probe for PGD and we'd have to go through the PGD approval process at Kaiser. The idea of waiting so many more months to get pregnant is just awful. What I'd need to find out is whether it's possible to freeze biopsy samples in preparation for PGD, since people usually build the probe before doing the IVF cycle. It's so much to consider. 

Milou is not glad it's 4th of July

Hopefully I'm already pregnant and we won't need to go there. The blood test is Sunday and I think I need to know before that, which leaves tomorrow as the day to test. That gives me about 13 hours to work up the nerve to squint at yet another stick. Oh boy.

TWW: Getting Antsy and ANGRY

Here I am, 9 DPO and I'm starting to get antsy. E asked me the other day when I could start testing, he wanted to know as soon as possible and was hoping it would be soon. I looked it up on my Fertility Friend calendar, as if I haven't been counting the hours, and told him the soonest I could possibly expect a result was Thursday, at 10 DPO, and even that was pretty early. 

According to countdowntopregnancy.com, If I am pregnant, I have a 67% chance of getting a positive and a 33% chance of getting a false negative at 10 DPO. 33% is still a pretty high margin for error so I'm nervous to test with those odds. I think I'd rather wait until at least Friday.

In the meantime, I'm still fuming over SCOTUS and Hobby Lobby. I just can't accept a world in which we legalize gender discrimination and grant corporations personhood. For those thinking it would just be IUDs and the morning after pill that got the shaft, think again:

"The Supreme Court on Tuesday confirmed that its decision a day earlier extending religious rights to closely held corporations applies broadly to the contraceptive coverage requirement in the new health care law, not just the handful of methods the justices considered in their ruling. 

The justices did not comment in leaving in place lower court rulings in favor of businesses that object to covering all 20 methods of government-approved contraception. […]

The justices also ordered lower courts that ruled in favor of the Obama administration to reconsider those decisions in light of Monday's 5-4 decision." (Source)

I'm so angry. So, so, so angry. And disgusted, and angry all over again. Need an IUD to help prevent cervical cancer? Nope! Need birth control pills to help regulate your hormones? Nope! Got raped? No morning after pill coverage for you! Need birth control because you have a genetic condition that causes half your babies to have horrible defects? Nope, no coverage! DON'T WANT TO GET PREGNANT? NO.  NO COVERAGE FOR YOU.

FUCK America, what the fuck are you thinking?? I don't know how this happened, how we could have such a horrific setback in women's rights. 

If you've got a penis though, don't worry, they've still got your back Hobby Lobby is happy to keep paying for vasectomies and Viagra.

Fuck.

TWW: Disgusted With Our Courts

As I'm sure everyone has heard by now, our highest court system recently ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby and it's religious right to decide whether female employees should have employer funded access to certain contraceptives.  It is now legal for "religious", closely held, corporations to jeopardize the health of women they employ by denying them access to basic reproductive health benefits if their religious beliefs conflict with a woman's right to contraception as guaranteed by law. As we all know, those dangerous IUDs are likely to climb right out of those women's uteri, kill some babies and attack the executives in their beds. They have to be stopped! All in the name of corporate personhood and Christianity. Disgusting.

I am equally appalled that this ruling was handed down by 5 men, whose decision implies that discriminating against women is not discrimination as long as you do it for religious reasons. And oh yeah, their vasectomies are still covered, so no harm, no foul. The 3 women and 1 man in the dissenting minority filed a dissent outlining not only the violation of women's rights, but the danger that this ruling could be applied to other religious objections:

Justice Ginsburg’s Dissent

"Would the exemption the Court holds RFRA demands for employers with religiously grounded objections to the use of certain contraceptives extend to employers with religiously grounded objections to blood transfusions (Jehovah’s Witnesses); antidepressants (Scientologists); medications derived from pigs, including anesthesia, intravenous fluids, and pills coated with gelatin (certain Muslims, Jews, and Hindus); and vaccinations (Christian Scientists, among others)?"

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Although the ruling in it's current form specifies that it applies only to contraceptives right now, how is the court system supposed to decide which religious objections should be accommodated and which shouldn't? It's a dangerous, slippery slope.

Nancy Pelosi, the house minority leader and my representative here in California called the ruling an “outrageous step against the rights of America's women." Although only those employed by Hobby Lobby are most immediately effected, it's impossible to know the long lasting consequences. Since The Affordable Care Act in 2010 (ObamaCare) mandated that insurance companies provide a basic health care package including contraceptives, over 70 lawsuits were filed and there are still 48 pending in the courts right now. An estimated 90% of corporations in America are closely-held corporations and together they account for 52% of our workforce. What is to stop them all from filing religious exemption suits to deny their female employees coverage?

I am truly disgusted with our court system right now. How could they do this to women? As someone who already has little control over their reproductive health, it's staggering to me that the courts feel my employers have a right to interfere with my medical decisions.  What about those people who chose contraceptive devices like IUDs for medical reasons? Why should their right to proper health care be superseded by their boss' view on contraceptives? The discrimination is staggering. According to courts and health care system right now, infertility is not a disease for which you should receive coverage and your boss can decide what kind of contraception your insurance should offer. Disgusting.

TWW: Carriers, The Cartoon

Today, I'm sharing a cartoon that was published on NPR. While our stories are a little different, Lauren didn't find out until she was pregnant that she AND her husband were both carriers while I know in advance, I can't help but relate to every carrier of a genetic disease out there. There are so many stories, so many diseases, but they all share the same core elements: fear, hope, despair, waiting. I feel like being a carrier takes so much from the experience of pregnancy or TTC. You don't get to worry about planning baby's birthday, or whose eyes or laugh baby might have, you're too busy agonizing over whether you can even get pregnant and if you do, will you have to terminate because of a tiny genetic typo? Lauren's typo, the mutation for CF, is 3 missing base pairs, while my Fragile X repeats look like a cat walked over the keyboard while my code was being written. CGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG. Whoops, but there's no backspace.

Spoiler: Lauren's story has a happy ending, and while I'm not a fan of her "everything works out in the end" message because, honestly, a lot of the time it doesn't work out in the end, I do appreciate the light she's shedding on carriers of genetic diseases. For her future comics, I'd love to see something about TTC with the knowledge that you might have to terminate multiple times or have a child with a serious genetic disease. Or a comic about parents who have lost a child to a horrible genetic disease and are trying to heal and decide how to go on. Or one about those of us whose genetic mutations come with a side of infertility and how just getting pregnant is a constant struggle with fertility drugs and the insurance companies, with testing and waiting, with no guarantee of a healthy baby. Those topics are all a little heavier, less palatable than "it all works out in the end", but like so many things, one step at a time. One ray of light at a time.

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All cartoon images by the incredibly talented Lauren R. Weinstein as shared on Nautilus

To read the rest of the comic, you can find the other parts here's Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5.

TWW: Delicious Distractions

Today's two week wait distraction comes in the unexpected form of absolutely delicious, deep dish, chocolate chip cookies. It all started at about 10:30pm when, still full from a dinner of lasagna, salad and rather good red wine from BevMo's sale, E turned to me and asked if there was any way I could make him cookies. Home made, deep dish, chocolate chip cookies, to be precise. Was there any way I might have the supplies to make them now?

I've never been one to turn down and opportunity to bake and as I told E, I've never had a kitchen that didn't have the most basic baking ingredients in stock. Chocolate chip cookies, I told him, definitely fall under the basic ingredients category and I happened to have another muffin top pan sitting conveniently nearby in the shopping bag I hadn't yet unpacked. Muffin top pans are some of to favorite kinds of pans and I've developed the habit of buying one every time I see them. This new one was number 4 in my collection. 

It took me a few minutes to gather the supplies and start mixing everything up, but by 11:30, three trays of deep dish chocolate chip cookies were wafting their chocolatey aroma throughout the house. This time, I used the traditional Tollhouse chocolate chip cookie recipe and made 18 cookies using a muffin top pan with 6 cookie spots. Each depression got a very generous tablespoon of cookie dough and it ended up being the perfect amount. 

They were absolutely delicious. Crisp on the outside and soft on the inside, with warm melty chocolate chips throughout. E had inhaled two before I got the second tray out of the oven. They're definitely an easy crowd pleaser and were an excellent distraction for this evening. 

Today was a long, hot day. E was off work, a rare Saturday off day that also happens to be his only off day in a 20 day stretch. Milou had agility class, which was somewhat less fun than usual given the miserable heat, and E and I spent most of the day attempting to stay cool and nursing giant Jamba Juice smoothies. I know the acupuncture diet says no cold food, but I couldn't even look at a hot meal until the evening. 

I also found out that one of the women on an infertility board I frequent just got her BFP. She also had 6-7 eggs this month so I'm taking it as a good sign that 7 eggs is this cycles lucky number. Only 6 more days until I can start testing and I really, really hope this is it. I've been crampy and bloated and of course my boobs are sore but I don't want to read too much into it because it's probably all from the progesterone in the Endometrin. Thanks Endometrin! You know how I love you.

TWW: Like A Girl

As part of my two week wait campaign of distraction, I've been spending a little more time each day checking out the news. Yesterday, I came across something I absolutely had to share.

Although E and I don't have any children yet (come on blastocysts!), we hope to someday have the privilege of raising a daughter.  Raising strong, self-confident children of any gender is no easy feat in today's society and, too often, children are measured by and pressured to conform to gender stereotypes. Our girls are growing up feeling less than their male counterparts, and our boys are being told it's not acceptable to be nurturing or self expressive.

I know this video is part of a campaign by Always (yes, that Always) but I couldn't not share it regardless of its origin. So many unlikely companies are starting to tackle the inequality in gender stereotypes and it's incredible to see. Here's another good one, by Verizon! about nurturing our children's intelligence, especially our girls, instead of just their appearance. 

It's heart breaking to see how quickly a girl's sense of self efficacy is worn down as they grow into adulthood. I sincerely hope that when my children reach adulthood, they will have done so without the steady stream of gender shaming that so many children grow up with.

Rock on Girls and Boys. You are stronger and smarter than you know.